Root 100% bricked phone, can samsung tell if its rooted?

Thread Starter

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Sep 9, 2011

I want to send my galaxy prevail by boost mobile into Samsung for repair under warranty. the phone did have shabby mod .9 and was working fine for weeks rooted. I guess I downloaded a bad ROM and completely bricked the phone, Already tried to unbrick it multiple ways, wont charge or go into download mode, the phone simply will not do anything.

Now my question is, will samsung be able to tell that the phone has been rooted even though its completely dead?

Recognized Developer

Rank:

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jul 15, 2011

Hey everyone!
I guess I downloaded a bad ROM and completely bricked the phone

Click to expand...

You dont know what happened to the phone before it was bricked or did you download a ROM, which ROM was it so that others can avoid using it.

have you tried taking battery and sd card out and then going into download mode?

Bottom line as long as the nand chip is not fried, Samsung can read the contents of it and determine that is was rooted

if you downloaded a bad ROM it may have overwritten your booloader, but the rest of the nand will be able to be read, so they may charge you to fix it, they may not even bother too look, I have never sent a phone to them yet. Maybe someone who has sent a phone in will come buy and and give some advice.

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Aug 29, 2011

If you phone insurance w/ Asurion. call them and say that you want replacement device. they'll ask whats wrong with your phone and you tell them whats wrong . However, dont mention that bricked your phone . Tell them you dropped it in water or dropped on concrete floor a few tymes. If they approve , you will pay a deductable of $65 flat and they send you the phone the next day free shipping . When it comes to bricking your phone, that has to do with unnecessary rebooting. So try to very nice with replacement, ok? Hope that solved your problem . Have a great day.

Rank:

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Aug 26, 2011

In my experience with NAND based devices, if they are "bricked" to the point that they have to be re-flashed with a programming dongle to get them to work, the process of doing so does not usually have steps to determine of you had made changes to the firmware at all. They just do a factory load on it and see if it now passes the factory test.
If the phone bricked because of hardware failure, they won't bother to component level troubleshoot a phone that retails for below $200

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

May 9, 2011

I think I read one time about some kind of trick samsung users could do to resolve a certain kind of brick cutting a micro usb cable in 2 and using the microusb half of it with a resistor or something connected to some of the wires, you plug it in to the phone and _something_ (don't remember what) is supposed to happen. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

They talk about soldering a resistor onto the microusb plug itself, I have no clue if that's really necessary or not. It would be a lot easier to cut a cable in half strip some wires and just twist the resistor leads to the wires, it's only going to be used for 2 seconds. (hopefully)

Recognized Developer

Rank:

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jul 15, 2011

I think I read one time about some kind of trick samsung users could do to resolve a certain kind of brick cutting a micro usb cable in 2 and using the microusb half of it with a resistor or something connected to some of the wires, you plug it in to the phone and _something_ (don't remember what) is supposed to happen. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

They talk about soldering a resistor onto the microusb plug itself, I have no clue if that's really necessary or not. It would be a lot easier to cut a cable in half strip some wires and just twist the resistor leads to the wires, it's only going to be used for 2 seconds. (hopefully)

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Aug 21, 2011

I sent my Prevail in to Samsung that had been rooted previously, though I was able to use Odin to unroot. They were not able to tell it had been rooted before. I'm not sure though how in-depth their testing and checking goes.

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Sep 9, 2011

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Dec 3, 2011

I just hard bricked my Galaxy SII due to installing the wrong ROM. So I called Samsung and just told them how my phone would not turn on and that it might be bricked. (I did not mention that I rooted my phone.) So they just gave me a shipping label that I can use to send my phone to them for repair, since I am still under warranty. So I will see how it goes and see if Samsung will notice if my device is rooted.

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jul 16, 2011

I'm not so sure how ethical this post is as a whole, but I guess good information.

Working in a field of technical support myself, it's my experience that we repair people are only interested in doing whatever it takes to fix it and go on to the next one. Any extra steps for something like checking if the device has been rooted is typically not something that would be done unless it was necessary or it has become a major problem (for example, there is an extremely high load and the cause is related to users rooting their phones).

I don't work in the cell phone repair field, just saying from my experience. I couldn't imagine their processes would be much different. It's usually the higher up people who are completely out of touch with the end user that put on stupid restrictions like no warranty for rooted devices. The people actually doing the repairing usually could care less and/or even encourage doing some things the company wouldn't want them to do. Where I work (phone technical support), if someone requests an RMA and it's within warranty I replace it no further questions ask unless I truly feel an RMA wont fix the problem but even then I just explain my position and if the customer insists they still want an RMA I give it.

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jul 8, 2011

today i downloaded the wrong kernal for my samsung galaxy s2 and my phone shut down and wont turn on no matter what i did. so i called t-mobile all i told them was my phone wont turn on no matter what i try. they sending me a new phone tommorow all i have to pay is $5.

Posts:

Joined:

Aug 26, 2011

I'm not so sure how ethical this post is as a whole, but I guess good information.

Working in a field of technical support myself, it's my experience that we repair people are only interested in doing whatever it takes to fix it and go on to the next one. Any extra steps for something like checking if the device has been rooted is typically not something that would be done unless it was necessary or it has become a major problem (for example, there is an extremely high load and the cause is related to users rooting their phones).

I don't work in the cell phone repair field, just saying from my experience. I couldn't imagine their processes would be much different. It's usually the higher up people who are completely out of touch with the end user that put on stupid restrictions like no warranty for rooted devices. The people actually doing the repairing usually could care less and/or even encourage doing some things the company wouldn't want them to do. Where I work (phone technical support), if someone requests an RMA and it's within warranty I replace it no further questions ask unless I truly feel an RMA wont fix the problem but even then I just explain my position and if the customer insists they still want an RMA I give it.

Just some inside perspective, hope someone finds this helpful.

Click to expand...

Exactly
Even more so when you consider labor charge rate.
Say they paid a technician $15USD/hour. That employee's "Charge Rate" turns out to be something more like $40USD/hour after adding in employer tax contributions, benefits, tool costs, lighting for their work area, safety equipment, etc.
now, someone sends in a phone that costs the company 35 bucks to replace outright.
How concerned will they possibly be that customers are breaking their phones in a way that would take that technician extra time beyond the 5 minutes it probably takes to reflash the device blindly?

Rank:

None

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jun 13, 2011

If you phone insurance w/ Asurion. call them and say that you want replacement device. they'll ask whats wrong with your phone and you tell them whats wrong . However, dont mention that bricked your phone . Tell them you dropped it in water or dropped on concrete floor a few tymes. If they approve , you will pay a deductable of $65 flat and they send you the phone the next day free shipping . When it comes to bricking your phone, that has to do with unnecessary rebooting. So try to very nice with replacement, ok? Hope that solved your problem . Have a great day.

Click to expand...

yeah I'm getting my replacement phone from asuran today my phone stopped reading the sd card and I went back to stock I couldn't get none of the updates with a p r l's or anything now so I might as well send it back
had me worried when I wentto put it back to factory stock my phone lost connection with my pc in the middle of the odin what a mess the phone would just stay on the samsung logo I finally got stock put back on and deleted s d card

Moderator

Rank:

Points:

Posts:

Joined:

Jun 12, 2010

That's what we're talking about here and what we can do about it. First let me say that misrepresenting a problem to try to benefit from a warranty you may not be entitled to is fraud. Deliberately damaging the phone in a way that would cover up the original fault is just as illegal. I would never recommend a felony as a solution to a problem.

What we are talking about here are options within the original terms of your warranty. Many manufacturers include clauses about modifying the stock firmware voiding the warranty, but it is more to prevent users from flashing their phone and then seeking support for Cyanogen or SuperDuperOverclock rom 2.4356433.1a. It is up to them to honor or disallow a warranty claim. If it's a carrier subsidized handset the incentive for them to keep you as a customer becomes greater. The real money is made from the contracts, not the hardware.

The question was raised if the manufacturers can tell if the phone was rooted. If it was really dead as in hardware failure, then no. They'd need access to the file system to tell and if there is no way to do that on a dead phone (okay, there is but it's far too expensive and will most likely render the phone inoperable anyway, so they won't go that far.)

So you contact the warranty department, either directly with the manufacturer or the carrier and you tell them "the phone won't turn on." Tell them what you have tried including battery pulls with and without the USB charger, holding power button, factory reset key combos, etc. and they phone just won't power on. The issue you an RMA and you send it back.

The techs have a few diagnostics they can try, but if the phone is really dead, they'll most likely simply send you a refurb as a replacement. Stock, of course. The issue arises if they are able to power on the handset, because they will know immediately it's not stock firmware. Most likely in that case they will contact you and notify you that the warranty doesn't cover this and let you know what the fee for the fix. Or, they might not, but that's up to them because you were the one who took the risk in the first place by flashing the phone and possibly being the cause of the problem in the first place.

The other dilemma is what happens if they specifically ask you if the firmware had been modified prior to accepting the return. That's an issue of conscience. Personally I wouldn't want to be looking in the mirror every morning and seeing a cheat and a fraud and compromise my karma for a hundred bucks. Plus, if you get caught, they are much less likely to be sympathetic and quite possibly presecutorial.

The long and the short of it is if you behave in an honest and upstanding manner, you may find that manufacturers value you more as a customer and are willing to cut you some slack. Worst case is you have to pay a little more out of pocket for your mistake, but that's all part of being upstanding and you'll be better off for it.

Sorry for the dissertation, but it's been on my mind lately. I don't think there's any need for further discussion so I am going to close the thread.